What were the best parts of President Bush's second inaugural address?
"No one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave."
Well, yes. The great pride of the United States is that it was explicitly founded as a confederation of states dedicated to the idea that each individual was entitled to pursue his own happiness.
Uh...and that was also part of its shame, for a while: "his" happiness. Oops. Well, that's what they meant at the time, women being regarded as, ah, something else, not to vote, testify in courts of law, own much property, and so on. And blacks? As Donnie Brasco and his Sicilian pals would say, fuhgeddaboudit.
"Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self." Yes -- a self grounded in a strong "I," not a mindless conformity to the group, to authority, to "Allah," or to the state. Self is measured not by one's service to the community, as President Bush goes on to later imply, but to holding reality and reason as absolutes. In the process, the community most certainly benefits from the presence of capable, competent and strong individuals.
One of his choices for what was worst in the Bush speech:
[To young people:] "Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself." The premise of this statement is that one's "self" consists of nothing more than wants, urges and hormonal appetites -- devoid of reason, intelligence and thought. Although this is what our public school system seeks to create, and to some extent succeeds at creating in young people, this is not the essence of being young -- or human.